When your technology isn't just bleeding-edge, but laser-edged, disruption-fielded-with-motorized-teeth high-tech. Power Glows, and now so does your tech. A common design scheme used for this glow is a series of lines along the edges or between panels of the machine. Others will have flat surfaces crossed by circuit-like lines that glow when activated, or have occasional pulses of light race down their length in tandem. Others have glowing components such as engines, weapon barrels, forcefield projectors and the like.

"Tron Lines" are strongly influenced from the wireframe graphics used in early video games, especially as it appeared in Atari's "Quadrascan Display"-based games such as Tempest, Battlezone and Asteroids. As 3D modeling transitioned from empty frames to solid polygons, the edges were still rendered, ergo, "Tron Lines".

If this were to take place in a world using technology similar to ours, this would be pretty inefficient. A big waste of power to maintain the glow (assuming this was electricity and not some power source that glowed on its own), and impossible to conceal, but damn, it looks cool. Therefore, it's implied that Tron Lines indicate some non-electrical (or "differently electrical") form of technology; and those lines are the visible "power" veins. When your tech uses this, Hard Light systems and Holographic Terminals are pretty much prerequisites.

A similar phenomenon occurs with the RX-0 Unicorn when it enters Destroy-Mode, where segments of the Unicorn's armour open up to expose the glowing psychoframe underneath. The colour depends on the strength of the pilot's psycommu resonance.

In Infinite Ryvius, the Ryvius lights up with Tron Lines when first activated.

In the earlier seasons of the anime, whenever a card was played onto one of the many hologram-generator playfields present in the series, Tron Lines would flash briefly around it. Justified in that the field (or Duel Disk, for that matter) has to read the microchip that's embedded within the card, and a full scan is necessary to locate said chip.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds', whenever a character performs a Synchro or Dark Synchro Summon, the outline of the non-Tuner monsters glow (usually golden, but a white outline appeared when a monster had a Negative Level).

The Earthbound Immortals are also covered in them, themed after the Nazca Lines.

The current Buck Rogers comic book has the heroes wearing uniforms with Tron Lines.

A number of New 52 characters and teams, such as Superboy, the Teen Titans and the Ravagers wear very Tron-inspired costumes; black with glowing lines depending on the character. A design sketch◊ for Ridge even refers to them as "Tron Lines"

Marvel mutant Havok gets to have a costume with such when he was jammin' with the Starjammers. When he returns to earth and briefly rejoins X-Factor Pip the Troll doesn't miss the chance in calling him Tron, much to his annoyance.

Named, of course, after the computer world of TRON, which, being a representation of technology itself, has pretty much everything and every character covered in them - the effect earned TRON an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume. In that universe, a Program's circuitry lines appear to be an identifier with the colors and patterns communicating their position, function, system of origin, and loyalties within a system.

It's worth pointing out that one shot in TRON in the real world includes a black Encom helicopter with fluorescent red paint stripes, effectively real-life Tron lines.

It shouldn't seem surprising that TRON: Legacy, the movie sequel, uses this. What is surprising is how controlled this effect is. On a special note, all Tron Lines on characters were achieved using flexible light strips built into the clothing. Not one line is CGI.

This occurs on Lantern Corps uniforms and other ring-generated items in the Green Lantern film starring Ryan Reynolds.

Busby Berkeley used an early version of this aesthetic during the "Shadow Waltz" sequence in Gold Diggers of 1933, by outlining a few dozen violins with neon lights; unfortunately, the visible electrical cords coming from each violin (which apparently shocked more than a couple dancers, who were wearing dresses that were lined with metal wire) undermines the effect.

Automan in "hero mode", his car and his helicopter. The similitude with TRON is not unexpected, as the AutoCopter seems lifted directly from the corporate helicopter from TRON, and Cursor is suspiciously similar to the Bit sidekicks of the tank pilots in said movie. Both TRON and Automan were produced by the same person, Donald Kushner.

Present in all the riders of the Kamen Rider Faiz universe, which powers all the gears. The lines only glow during the Transformation Sequence, although the finishers all involve a pulse of energy traveling from the Rider Belt to an arm or leg. The supplementary materials say that these lines carry a substance known as Photon Blood, which may explain why they need actual "lines" to carry it. It's part of Faiz's the slightly more "realistic" idea of the way a Rider suit works. Energy is always seen traveling from the power source to the place it's going to be used (not just the arm or leg, but specific devices on it). For Rider Kick finishers, it's the circle on the boot with the Rider's emblem.

In Power Rangers in Space, Ecliptor's body is covered with green Tron Lines. The Dark Fortress is also half-solid and half-green Tron Lines (as in, half of it seems to be made of green Tron Lines) in many scenes. Interestingly, most establishment shots make it appear to be in another dimension, and when it's in normal space, the Tron Line half becomes solid before it actually interacts with the outside world (such as sending out fighters or putting the Rangers' ship in that web thing). It stays Tronified during Make My Monster Grow scenes, though.

In Star Trek: Voyager, one mid-series episode had some of Seven's nanoprobes infect the Doctor's 29th century mobile emitter, eventually resulting in a highly-advanced Borg drone, featuring extrapolations of the Borg in that century. More sleek and organic-looking than the usual drone, it also had embedded Tron Lines which pulsed at regular intervals.

In Farscape, whenever a Leviathan goes into Starburst, they get pretty blue (or in Talyn's case, yellow) glowy lines all over them.

The male dancers in the latter part of Inna's "In Your Eyes" video sport these.

Pinballs

Appropriately enough, TRON: Legacy has these all over the playfield, most notably on the ramps when the playfield blacks out.

An early example appears in Bally's Xenon, which uses blue plastics and lights to give a futuristic Tron Lines-style aesthetic. Some collectors modify their tables with blue LEDs to further emphasize the effect.

Tabletop Games

BattleTech has the Enhanced Imaging system, a cybernetic interface between the pilot and his Mech. One side effect of the system is that the user's body is covered in what looks like full-body tattoos, but are in fact cybernetic circutry. In the cartoon, they glowed when activated, and EI visuals outlined mechs color-coded by IFF.

The Necrons in Warhammer 40,000 revel in this trope, as nearly all of their buildings possess these. Depending on the painter, they themselves might be glowing as well.

All over the place in the video game sequel to the TRON movie, TRON 2.0. The page picture is Jet Bradley, the game's protagonist before and after digitization. In 2.0, each faction from the game had a different color and pattern, and it was important to tell the difference, lest you accidentally shoot an ally or civilian.

Naturally, "Space Paranoids", the TRON-themed world of Kingdom Hearts II, has them as well.

And in Twilight Princess, everything remotely associated with Twilight has a sort of Lovecraft+TRON thing going on. The Dominion Rod imparts Tron Lines to statues, similar to the ones from Wind Waker, when you take control of them. Plus, the Twili have tron-line markings on their bodies. Look at the ones on Midna's forearms for example.

A common puzzle design in many games, such as Final Fantasy X and Simon Tatham's port of Net, involves rearranging blocks and switches to connect glowing Tron Lines from point A to point B, where point B is often the exit door.

In Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, the Prince has a magical version of this running down his wounded/partially transformed arm. The "Dark Prince" persona has this all over his body.

Forerunner artifacts (and the Covenant technology styled after them) often have tiny geometric patterns carved on most flat surfaces. These lines often glow, or have tiny lights flickering behind them.

Much of the tech in the Metroid Prime subseries glows, usually so you can tell what happened when you hit a switch; in the case of Samus's cannon, the color of the glow tells you the weapon you're currently using. There's also the green glowing lines between the panels in Samus' armor.

Sanctuary Fortress, a Cyberpunk-styled city in Metroid Prime 2, had its share of Tron Lines.

In Metroid Prime 3, when Samus's Phazon corruption reaches the highest levels near the end of the game, her suit really starts to show those blue lines. Yellow and blue lines can also be seen in Skytown, Elysia.

Justified in Phantasy Star Universe, as the "Tron Lines" woven into all clothing are part of a protection system called a "line shield" they perform the same effect of looking cool as most Tron Lines, but also perform the function of being the means by which energy barriers are projected, the game's form of armour.

The agents' suits in Crackdown display this, as do vehicles in the process of upgrading.

In Fable, powerful magic-users naturally have glowing-blue tattoos. They seem to break through your skin more and more as you attain more magical power. Possibly hinting at a potential Energy Being future — it is said in Fable II that particularly powerful Will-users can live a long time.

Specifically: VI holograms have brighter lines going through them. Additionally, the Geth Armory Medium and Heavy suits for the Krogan Wrex has glowing cables and lines.

In Mass Effect 2, some of the suits or armor have these. A few glowing lines are present on the back of all of Shepard's N7 armor, and glowing lines are especially noticeable on some of the krogan armors, particularly Gatatong Uvenk's suit. The downloadable Kestrel Armor features a number of these lines as well, on each of the armor components. A couple of the alternate appearance packs also feature armor with glowing lines, most notably Garrus and Grunt's. Jack even gets a leather jacket that has a couple of bright red lines down the back.

One of the endings for Mass Effect 3 features a world where a phenomenon called synthesis changes the DNA in all synthetic and organic lifeforms into a mix of the two. The effect can be seen on a character's skin as faint green lines that, while looking more like circuit lines, still evoke the same imagery.

The main character in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne gets as version that looks like ordinary full-body tattoos, but then they start glowing in the dark! Apparently becoming mostly-demon does that to ya.

The "VR Training" level of the "LittleBigPlanet" level pack has them in a grid arrangement on most of the walls and obstacles. The material you get for Create Mode from this level comes in red, green, and blue flavors. Even the glowing of the lines is visually close to the ones from TRON.

There's also an unlockable skin and helmet that are clearly evocative of TRON; they even glow in the dark!

Some of the instances and bosses in the Ulduar area of World of Warcraft have these of one sort or another. It's arguable whether they are Tron Lines or Instant Runes since Ulduar is Titan architecture and represents something between technology and magic. (but closer to technology)

Red Faction 2 gives us the nano-soldiers with glowing lines on their skin. The lines appear and pulse when they show strong emotions and when they are healing. The nano-based weapons also tend to have pulsing Tron Lines.

Transformers: War for Cybertron, by all indications, loves this trope immensely, given how it's used on pretty much all the characters and lots of the scenery.

Ghosts and Spectres have these. Ghosts are blue and Spectres are red; which ones are "good" and "evil" is largely a question of your perspective.

While specifically being noted as being more eccentric and intimidating than the previous generations of Ghosts but not actually crazy and/or evil, Spectres are (probably!) just color-coded for distinction between the two rather than as a reflection of their morality; Blue for the old guard and Red for the maligned new generation. On the other hand, since whatever choices the player (as Jim Raynor) makes in the campaign automatically become and always were the objectively right ones (ie; siding with Tosh means that he was and remains loyal, and that his men were being used as scapegoats, while siding against him means Tosh was using you the whole time and his entire Spectre cadre betrays you along with him), it's probably a moot point.

Protoss technology also tends to include glowing blue bits, although they seem to have an aversion to straight lines.

In Achron, units are depicted as mostly-translucent silhouettes with edges that glow with the unit's team colour. This is an interface concession to make your troops easier to spot: according to the setting, all three of the species use advanced camouflage on their military units, making them near invisible. This doubles as an explanation for why your units have extremely short sight (insofar as they have RTS-standard near-blind line of sight radii). You can actually ''hear'' battles occurring outside your vision radius.

Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza all have these as natural markings. They only glow on the title screens, though. Additionally, the fake Groudon from Pokemon Jirachi Wish Maker had all its marks glowing once it deteriorated into its more monstrous state. In OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire, their Primal modes have much more pronounced Tron lines with a much brighter glow.

Dialga and Palkia.

Umbreon has Tron Rings. And (in the anime at least) they glow in the dark.

Tomorrow City from Epic Mickey is Disney's Tomorrowland decorated with Tron Lines. The boss, "Petetronic", wears armor that glows with Tron Lines as well. It should be noted Petetronic's suit is specifically modeled after Sark, The Dragon of the original TRON, and his "purified" form uses Kevin Flynn's. Tomorrow City also borrows heavily from the movie in more than just the lines.

The Virtual theme in the TimeSplitters 2 mapmaker has Tron Lines as decorations.

A recurring puzzle is a broken circut, and a few movable blocks lying around that happen to have corresponding circut lines etched on them. When finished, the circut glows, and a door opens.

Dark Dawn takes this a few notches further; summons such as Tiamat and Coatlicue now involve towers covered in Tron Lines, and a Mineral MacGuffin material, zol, apparently is covered in such lines naturally. Plus the "fix the circut" puzzle shows up several times.

The Mountain Roc's guts have Tron Lines on them. This becomes a bit of a Chekhov's Gun later in the story, when The towns whose machines the party activated are the only safe places underneath the Eclipse, the glowing lines keeping the darkness-spawned monsters away.

The Demigods from Asura's Wrath have these, to emphasize the fact that the game is South Asian Mythology meets Scifi.

Borderlands has them on some of the many, many, weapons the game has, as well as on large rocks lying around, typically related to The Vault.

Saints Row: The Third features a gang made up entirely of cyber punks, whose clothing was all black with neon blue Tron Lines. Also, their story-arch culminates with a mission where the player character is transported inside their user mainframe to stop their hacking/money laundering schemes, and render the gang powerless. This entire mission's design was a clear reference to Tron, and finishing it unlocks two vehicles with Tron Lines as a major design point, as well as the Cyber Blaster used throughout the mission.

Plenty of these can be found throughout the Ratchet & Clank series, mostly on Ratchet's armor (most noticeably his armor in A Crack in Time).

PlanetSide 2 has the Lumifiber cosmetic on vehicles with different colors for each faction; Yellow for the New Conglomerate, Red for the Terran Republic, and Cyan for the Vanu Sovereignty. Though slapping bright neon lights on a fighter might seem like a bad idea, they can be toggled on and off at will, and serve as perhaps the best IFF available to the Liberators and Galaxies, both of which are at risk of friendly fire because their faction specific paint lines can be hard to see at long range. Completing the Master-level Directive on a vehicle grants a special lumifiber; TR fades between orange, red, and pink, VS between cyan and turquoise, and NC between yellow and blue. In the original game, Ancient Vanu equipment often had recessed glowing lines set within them, most noticeable in the hallways of the Cavern bases.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has the Return of the Gree event. their ship is just plain lit up in silver Tron lines and bright geometric shapes of neon coloring. there are also armor sets unique to the event that are black with blue or red lines (like TRON 2.0) or white and blue, similar to the Renegade's in TRON: Uprising. Needless to say, the armor quickly got called "Tron armor" and the event caused a lot of jokes about Disney's purchase of Lucasarts.

In Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time, there is a giant wooden fish statue full of these in Turning Japanese. It's colors are, however, green and yellow.

Lisa Basil from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Trials And Tribulations has a futuristic suit with flashing lights running up and down the sides and front of it. It's implied that she may or may not be a robot (yes, the game is that vague).

In Bionic Heart, Luke's apartment has the traditional blue Tron Lines on the walls. The function of these lines are never explained and seem to be only aesthetic.

Web Comics

Alice's more advanced forms in the webcomic Comedity have these around her face, and her "upgraded body" displays them when her holographic clothing generation system isn't covering them. Presumably, as a computer with conscious awareness of her own power consumption, she deactivates them when they aren't needed.

Generator Rex, whenever Rex uses his nanites to interface with machines or cure E.V.O.s and while changing his limbs into mechanical devices. His new transformations in season two have blue-white lines and black coverings not unlike TRON: Legacy.

Kim Possible's battlesuit from season 3 finale, So the Drama, throughout season 4 is pure white, with glowing light blue stitching and padding. As a Disney property it's probably an intentional Shout-Out, it can even change Kim's gloves into a scoop like Flynn used in the games in the first movie.

In Monster Buster Club, parts of the kids' costumes are fluorescent and give off a Tron Line effect in the dark.

Spaceships in Green Lantern: The Animated Series have this look, with green lines for Green Lanterns and red for Red Lanterns. Handily, this means that the good guys don't have to kill anyone, they can just attack the ships until their lights go out, meaning they're un-powered.

Young Justice: The Atom has fluorescent red trim along the muscle groups of his costume.

Real Life

Running Lights under the car can be seen as a way of imitating this in Real Life, as would be gratuitous use of neon.

The Buick Lacrosse now comes with Tron Lines of a sort as standard ambient lighting in the interior.

There are several entire websites devoted to selling products of this nature.

As a result, every single car in the Fast and the Furious series has neon lights all over the body. Of course, they need extra batteries to keep them glowing.

With LEDs becoming cheaper a lot of concept and higher-end production cars are getting this treatment, especially in the headlights.

Audi: LED daytime running lights, also taillight design.

There's a London-By-Night tour bus with a LED Tron Line encircling the top deck.

This has even bled into the world of computing, there is no modder unfamiliar with blue CCFLs.

The Luxor casino/hotel in Las Vegas was designed as a huge black glass pyramid with Tron Lines flowing to and from the giant column of light at the peak.

There's also a bulding in London's Docklands which, although the conventional upright slab, has Tron Lines running up it — they even change colour.

The Connection Machine, a supercomputer which was never as amazing as its price would indicate, but which looked damn cool. Though those are more Blinkenlights, actually. The Connection Machine is one of the most beautiful computers ever made, but pretty much every supercomputer made after the '70s looks pretty awesome. After all, if a machine's going to cost over a million dollars, why not throw a few thousand into the case?

Truth in Television: Try looking at your feet next time you ride an escalator. They are actually there to warn you not to put your feet there as you may fall, but still pretty cool.

The Wii console: the disc slot has a steady blue glow around the edge when powered on, and will pulse when a system upgrade is availible or a new message is in your inbox. Possible connection of Everything Is an iPod in the Future.

This trope is practically the reason EL-wire exists.

It's possible to get an iPod connector cable with an embedded EL strip (in blue, green or purple) which lights up and gives an animated representation of the charge flowing down the cable into the iPod. When the device is fully charged, the light goes out.

While neon accents on buildings have existed well before this trope came into existence, Metreon in San Francisco is clearly inspired by it, with plenty of lines to showcase how high-tech and cyberpunk it was intended to be.

Alienware gaming computers have these, and they change. It's pretty much a TRON computer.

A recent advancement in diode manufacture apparently allows for paper-thin, flexible and durable light sources of any size and shape (solid light strips being likely the most in-demand), at a fraction of the cost of traditional LEDs.

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